poetry

In the poem "Maybe This Building Should Go" — and a series of redactions — Frances McCue considers the emotional pull of particular places and buildings. The poem is part of her collection "Timber Curtain."

Bill Radke talks with KUOW poetry correspondent Elizabeth Austen about McCue's new collection, including why the poet chose to redact or erase her own poems.

In a parallel universe, poets stand on street corners and recite for us. We stop what we’re doing and gather together with friends and strangers to listen. Then we pay them some tribute and go on with our days, moved and enriched in some way.

When you're the poet laureate of Washington state, you log a lot of time on the road. "I got a new car for the job," laughs Tod Marshall. It came to him with 12,000 miles on it, and is now hovering around 57,000 as he hangs up his traveling hat.

What will it take for Seattle to become climate-friendly? That's The Burning Question this month on KUOW.

In this interview, reporter David Hyde put the question to Melinda Mueller, a Seattle high school biology teacher and a poet, and the author of "The After," a book of poems that imagines the world after humans have gone extinct.

The three-part poem is set in the American Civil War, and illuminates the lives of Union soldier Private Mary Galloway, field surgeon Mary Edwards Walker, and freedwoman and Union spy Mary Bowser — three women who defied the constraints of their time.

There are so many great literary events in the Puget Sound area every month. As individuals, we make it to those we can. Sometimes we miss one we really wanted to attend. It’s the same for us here at Speakers Forum. But we’re especially grateful we didn’t miss this one.

Seattle is a city that’s been shaped by technology, from Boeing to Microsoft to Amazon. But there’s a new digital presence influencing how we see the city: poetry. The Seattle Poetic Grid is the culminating project of Claudia Castro Luna, in her role as the inaugural Seattle Civic poet. In conversation with The Record’s Bill Radke, she says it makes perfect sense for a poetic atlas to live in the world of ones and zeros.

In the immediate wake of President Trump's inauguration, Seattle poet Jamaica Baldwin wrote a series of poems, including "Vigilant," excerpted below. KUOW's poetry correspondent Elizabeth Austen talks with The Record's Bill Radke about the ways the poem gives voice to an emotional reaction that is both larger than that single event and feels freshly relevant with each daily newscast.

Bill Radke speaks with Ian Martinez and Elisa Chavez about identity and slam poetry. The duo are members of the Rain City Poetry Slam. They will be competing at the national slam poetry competition in Denver on August 12.

Think about the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis. The seemingly endless cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Now, if you have kids in your life, think about how you talk to them about war and human suffering.

Six years ago Seattle poet Tara Hardy was blindsided by a mysterious chronic illness. It nearly killed her. She talks with KUOW's Elizabeth Austen about what it was like to live with that mystery, what changed once the disease had a name, and why she believes we're all living with a diagnosis of "human frailty."

We’ve collected readings from the Seattle Arts & Lectures poetry series over the last two months. You’ll hear the work of poets Ellen Bass, Ross Gay and Alice Notley. Each spoke at Seattle’s McCaw Hall.

Bill Radke and KUOW poetry correspondent Elizabeth Austen discuss an excerpt of "Pastoral Power," a sprawling, image-driven poem by local poet Jane Wong. The poem is rooted in a trip Wong took as a teenager to the rural village in southern China where her mother grew up.

Everybody should knowthat when I was youngerI was at school one day,I went straight from lunch to recess.My brother was driving down the street.Somebody was shooting at his car.The police said that one of the bulletswent through the window andhit him in the back of his head.

Bill Radke and Elizabeth Austen mark International Women's Day with a conversation about a poem that echoes across 150 years of activism.

Seattle civic poet Claudia Castro Luna performs Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I A Woman?" It's based on a speech Truth gave at a women's rights convention in 1851. Castro Luna responds with a poem of her own reflecting her perspective as an immigrant from El Salvador in "Am I Not An Immigrant?"

Washington state poet laureate Tod Marshall has just completed the first half of his two-year term. KUOW's Elizabeth Austen (Marshall's predecessor in the role) checks in with him about what it's like to travel the state talking poetry in a time of political upheaval.

Marshall reads a brand-new, as-yet-untitled poem that wrestles with, among other things, a persistent double-standard of accountability.

Bill Radke talks with KUOW poetry correspondent Elizabeth Austen about the book, "Are You An Echo? The Lost Poetry Of Misuzu Kaneko," illustrated by Toshikado Hajiri with narrative and translation by David Jacobson, Sally Ito and Michiko Tsuboi.